


The Bird Sings

by DWEmma



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 14:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6242398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DWEmma/pseuds/DWEmma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jorinda tells us the story of how it really happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bird Sings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zdenka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/gifts).



> [Jorinda and Joringel Original Story](http://germanstories.vcu.edu/grimm/jorinde_e.html)

I am the bird. I am the one who has always been a bird. You might have heard this story claiming that I was a girl, claiming that I was taken from my love and made into a bird, but I was always a bird. 

That is not to say I wasn’t taken from my love. The stories you’ve heard are correct. I loved Joringel with all of my avian heart. A bird’s heart, while he is in flight, can beat over 1000 beats per minute. A bird in love, well, my heart almost exploded when I first saw my love. 

His dark hair, his fair skin, his prominent beak, they all set my heart aflutter. It was his kind and loyal nature that caused my devotion to such a strange ape as he. I would watch him give just a little extra money to the baker, knowing that he had a new child to feed, or watch him leave seeds out for the mice that lived in his walls, and I wanted to lay eggs for no one else but he. 

I followed him around for days, desperately tweeting the melody that told him of my love, but he never even noticed me in more than passing. I knew that to catch his eye, I would have to become his strange species. 

And so I went to the witch. I saw her sick obsession with birds, the collection of them that she kept in her castle. I knew that if I delighted her, I might catch her magic, and get my wish. I perfected my song based on observing which birds delighted her the most, and then set to get myself captured. I proved myself to be the prettiest of all birds, and was able to coax her into watching to hear me sing as one of her, one strange night when she had taken on too much mead. 

I was so strange and gawky looking in my new embodiment, but when she dressed me in flowing fabrics, not unlike my own feathers, I knew that I was what my love would be drawn to. But the witch told me she wanted me back. If she had told me what she wanted with my Joringel, I never would have agreed. 

So I found him, and sang my way into his heart. And my time with him was worth giving up flight. But when I didn’t bring him back to her, for what purpose I do not care to know, she came up with another plan. She needed me to go too close to the castle, and I agreed, as she said she would kill him if I did not. No amount of his warning me could have kept me away on that day. She didn't take me because of my singing. She had given me this time with my love because of my singing. 

She turned me back into myself to tempt him to her. I know not of roses with perfect dewdrop, for I was caged in her possession when all of that occurred. But I do know that the stories have it wrong. I was left myself in the end, when he found me amongst all the other birds. And he was changed as well. And while we live caged, I am with my love, and I know why I sing.

[](http://tinypic.com?ref=qy94jl)


End file.
